Chapter 28 - August #2
“It did. I read well into the night some nights.” I leave it at that. A shut door as thick as a submarine’s. I switch gears back to the second reason I brought her here. “I want to show you more of my hometown after lunch.”
Kate and I are not that different. We hide our scars, mask our pain, and redirect.
She gives me a weak smile, her body floppy and tired, eyes dull. I feel her drift away again and don’t want her to go this alone, pressing her cheek into the warm space of my collarbone and let her listening to my heartbeat. My hand moves in gentle breaths across her back to ground her.
“Talk to me, Glitter Bomb. Don’t shut me out.” The protector in me rises when it comes to her, and her well-being exceeds my own.
“I’m fine, really.” She gives me the clinical and unconvincing reply that says she’s anything but. “And I don’t want to do this here.”
Stainless steel topping containers clatter as Mikey lifts them from the fridge and takes them to the sink out back for washing. The hum of the drink fridge picks up and masks our conversation. One of the staff belts out the Nirvana song playing.
“No one’s paying any attention, baby.” I brush soft lines into the curves of her hip.
Fiercely independent and stubborn, my diamond assumes the load of her burdens alone, like many sufferers of trauma, and doesn’t voice when it becomes overwhelming.
I’ve been around enough cops with PTSD to recognize the warning signs.
Denial that they have a problem, insisting they’re fine when they’re not, and refusing to speak to a professional or superior.
Emotional dysfunction and an inability to manage emotional spirals or unraveling.
Isolation and retreat from their partners, friends, and work colleagues.
A never-ending loop that’s exhausting both mentally and physically and wore a lot of officers out to the point they left the force.
Good men and women this city needed to protect it.
From what I can tell, Kate doesn’t indulge in alcohol or drugs to numb her pain, but I suspect she reads the dark romance for catharsis.
Though her pattern is clear from the information Grayson gathered for her file.
Fear of intimacy and rejection of close relationships.
Shouldering her emotions alone and not sharing them, even with close friends.
Putting on a brave face, this mask, the Cinderella act, pretending everything’s fine, when I can tell it’s fucking not.
Part of me wants to pry the words out of her.
Speaking them aloud gives them less potency.
The other part of me wants to carry the pieces she’s scared to give light to.
I don’t want her to hide from me anymore, and crook my finger beneath her chin, applying enough pressure to lift her face and set her gaze on me. “Let down your armor. You don’t have to fight this alone. We’re partners, remember?”
She crushes her eyes shut and deprives me of their hazel beauty. ”In crime only. You won’t give me all of you.”
That’s the knife I’ve been waiting for. She doesn’t know she’s gutting me from the inside. I swallow it down, because bleeding all over her won’t fix a damn thing.
I meant every word I told her. This is not temporary for me. This became more than just a mutually beneficial exercise the moment I threatened her boss and exposed myself. I compromised myself, her, my organization… for her. We’re not through once we deal with the Romans.
But two matters threaten to tear us apart. Death, or her uncovering what I’ve really been hiding from her. She won’t want the coward who walked away when he couldn’t protect her.
I jerk my finger in a signal for her to look at me, and she does. “Let me take your pain. Don’t use it as a weapon to hurt me and push me away.”
“My pain isn’t just something you can remove with a flourish of your stalker godmother wand.” There she goes, being stubborn again.
“Oh, yeah?” I drop her hand to my cock. “My magical wand is pretty adept at making you forget your pain when you beg for it.”
“I don’t mean that.” She sniffs and looks away.
I catch her jaw and force her back to me. “How about I undo every scar with my mouth?” She goes to argue, but I get in first with, “Close your eyes. Now.”
Her jaw rolls, but she does as I ask.
I shift my helmet aside and set it on the table.
My heart thumps as I lower my mouth to hers, caressing her soft lips, sealing my promise into her flesh like a tattoo.
She whimpers into the kiss, not out of need, but the promise of rebirth for which she strives.
Every caress of my lips rewrites her story.
I circle my fingers over her breastbone. “How about I remind you what it’s like to live in hope and not darkness?”
She lets out a helpless breath, fighting my words, disbelieving them. I just need one crack. One chink in her armor for her to let down her guard and let me in.
Her fingers fist my shirt tight, and the material groans against my neck and shoulders. “I’m scared that if I let go, I won’t stop falling.”
Breakthrough. But not enough to declare victory.
I push on and sink my fingers into the hair on the back of her head.
“You are not your scars, Glitter Bomb. You’ve lived your chapters in heartbreak and disappointment.
Let me be the ink that rewrites your ending to one of love.
” I kiss her in time to the last seven words, branding her with the tattoo of her new story. “One stubborn page at a time.”
A short silence expands between us as she rests her head on my heart. My words reached her, and she considers them rather than skirts around them. I hold my breath and wait for the cracking sound of her defenses.
She clasps the sides of my face, her mouth lifting in a smile, her eyes firmly shut. “That was fucking romantic.”
Armor pierced. A crack small enough to fit a toothpick through, but in my world, that’s a damn victory.
“I know.” I trace the entirety of her mouth with mine. “Don’t expect me to go all romantic all the time. I’ve got a morally orange reputation to uphold.”
She moves her face to my neck. “What sort of love story are we talking about? I mean, severed fingers are my love language.”
I snort into her hair and cradle the back of her neck. “Fuck. Erase the last few sentences and let me insert a line about dismemberment to satisfy your dark heart.”
That wins me a laugh. Not a short one that fizzles out. A longer, warmer sound, honeyed and textured. “Yeah, court me like a true villain, you fiend.”
I nuzzle into her neck and kiss her temple again. “I’m starting to love your twisted mind. But I can already tell I’m in a world of trouble with you.”
“Do you really mean it?” Her body leans in like her heart’s aching to believe me, but her mind doubts it.
I hate that she doesn’t feel worthy of love. That she doesn’t trust that I won’t stay. I want to kill her father for disowning her, scarring her with the fear that I’ll hurt and leave her too. Punch myself for doing the same.
“I mean it, Glitter Bomb.” My thumb traces her cheekbone, terrified this may be the last time I’m able to.
“If you did, you wouldn’t hide from me.” Her words are another knife to the chest.
I already buried my family. Grayson’s all I have left of that life, and he’s not enough to keep me breathing if she leaves.
Kate’s one of two people that feels like home.
Saying goodbye birthed grumpy asshole August into existence.
I can’t lose her again. I won’t just be alone, I’ll be a ghost haunting the ruins of what could have been, with nothing left of me worth saving.
“Give me time,” I murmur. “I don’t trust easily, but I will take this off for you. I need to be sure you’re ready for it.”
Fucking coward. I can charge into a hostile scene with weapons firing, take a bullet, challenge an invincible adversary to war, but I can’t do the simplest gesture for the one person I want more than revenge. Every time I hide, I feel her slip further away.
“If you see the man I really am, the fairytale ends, Glitter Bomb.” I trace her eyelashes and brows. “Midnight strikes, and my Cinderella walks away. That will destroy me worse than any wound the Romans inflicted on me.”
The thump on the glass counter and calling of my name signals our food is ready. It breaks apart our little moment, and stops her from getting a reply in.
Kate gives me enough time to secure my helmet before her eyes slide open and she climbs off my lap, and I lift out of the seat to claim the box and carry it outside, taking her to the liquor store next door to grab a six pack to wash our food down.
I booked a rental cabin and I don’t have to drive back to the city until tomorrow.
That means Kate’s all mine for the next twenty-four hours, and I’m going to let her deeper into my world.